A special rainy day recipe

Ingredients: A large helping of torrential rains, some blustering wind, one weary adult and one cranky toddler

Preparation time: Take as long as you like!

Serves: Enough to knock out an army!

Method:

1. Take a generous helping of a toddler who wakes up at 4 a.m. and promptly attempts to careen headfirst over sleeping parents into the fascinating abyss that lies beyond the bed, thereby causing parents to snap out of slumber pronto with near panic attacks.
2. Stir in some wailing and crying and resisting all attempts to go back to bed, deigning to finally do so only at 6.30 a.m. when it is time for the hapless parents to rise and shine, all bleary eyed.
3. Sprinkle some shrieking like the mother-is-an-axe-murderer when attempts are made to lather/ rinse/ wipe or any other such activity that takes away from the all important task of playing and splashing around in the bath water. Ensure that you add at least one teaspoon of getting the hapless mother soaking wet in the process.
4. Gently fold in some more screeching and prancing around on the bed immediately post-bath, wriggling out of the mother's grasp and making it a point to stay in the middle of the bed which she can't get to because of afore mentioned soaking wet status.
5. Briskly whip in a couple of kilos of the stuff babies make, making sure the diaper is freshly blessed only after the help has left the house so that there is no one to aid the defenseless mother from The Attack of The Fingers That Squish.
6. Deftly add The Fingers That Squish to the mix, making sure you use them for other purposes like touching all objects that the eye can see, thereby necessitating Operation Clean Up No. 1.
7. In the micro nano second that it takes the mother to slip on a fresh diaper, stir in the wriggling-out-of-the-grasp act again and pee in at least three empty spaces. Stir briskly to a smooth consistency.
8. Add some relentless wailing and being a general crank to taste.
8. Add some finely chopped messing around in the freshly peed in spaces, necessitating Operation Clean Up No 2.
9. Repeat Steps 3 & 4. This time make sure to add a generous helping of shrieking and relentless wailing as mother attempts to put on a fresh diaper and change of clothes.
10. Whip to a smooth consistency, stirring in some of throwing up of the dinner, necessitating Operation Clean Up No. 3.
11. Add a generous smattering of taking approximately one hour, forty five minutes and 15 seconds to go into a state of gentle sleep insisting only on the finest patting and rocking to get there, ignoring the fact that mother now looks and feels like a sixty year old on the brink of senility. Wait for the flavors to infuse.
12. Garnish with waking up at the sound of the slightest peep for at least thirty minutes more, drifting off finally into a resigned sort of sleep. We have a 4 a.m. appointment to keep after all.

Serve cold on a rainy day.

Tip: Works best in the absence of that fine ingredient, The Papa Man. Be sure to try when this ingredient is out of town, working late or is otherwise missing in action.